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Lorna Prescott

@lornaprescott.bsky.social
330 followers 75 following 91 posts

designing • learning • creating • growing • governance stewarding • network weaving • CoLab Dudley instigator & Time Rebel • supporting regenerative shifts in Dudley CVS • born at 332ppm medium.com/@lornaprescott_

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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
For years I’ve wanted something news outlets weren’t providing. I think I’ve found it! I’ve subscribed to @thenerve.news, ‘a fearless, female-founded media title set up by a collective of five former Guardian and Observer journalists who believe that the UK needs more truly independent journalism.’
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Madeleine Sugden @madlinsudn.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Planning to start your Christmas shopping this weekend? I've got you covered with over 100 links to charities, museums and small businesses selling interesting things which will bring joy not landfill. #GoodGifts
madlinblog.wordpress.com
Good Gifts 2025
Use your Secret Santa or present giving to support charities, museums and small businesses.
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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 30/10/2025
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Got a bit of writing done. It’s been heartening remembering two days in Dudley this spring with @bridgetmck.bsky.social @raechelkelly.bsky.social and our local collaborators, going about evaluation in a deeply relational and generative way. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
The Kith & Kin Living Lab: a field building approach to evaluation
Why and how we co-created a Kith & Kin Living Lab to explore Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice work.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
I’m not sure if anyone following me here is local to Dudley, but if so you’d be warmly welcomed at our Winter Gathering if you’d like to pop along 😊 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/winter-gat...
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
A sklfully embroidered banner made by UK suffragettes in their workshops was recently found stowed away in a little charity shop in Leeds. The once-forgotten item sold at auction for £13,600 #UnravellingWomensArt
Purple and gold embroidered suffrage banner with text including 'Manchester' and 'The fight founded by Mrs Pankhurst 1903'
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Kate Raworth @kateraworth.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Big Doughnutty News. Just out in Nature: the all-new 2025 Doughnut. Transformed from a single-year snapshot to an annual global monitor of 21st century social & ecological thriving. Available to all in an open-access paper by @andrewlfanning.bsky.social and me. 🧵 1/ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Beyond delighted that page 1 of Brene Brown’s new book takes us straight into a pickleball anecdote 😁
A photo of a hardback book “Strong Ground” by Brene Brown, which has a lovely rust brown cover with recurring drawn patterns with flowers and leaves in blues, pinks and black.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
“Flourishing and resilience are closely connected. Both voice a call for adaptation to the ebb and flow of events. They encourage us to be creative in generating resources. They urge us to shift perspectives, especially from victimisation to empowerment, and from power to humility.” - Yuria Celidwen
Photo of the book Flourishing Kin, by Yuria Celidwen
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Josh Artus @joshartus.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Big moment for us at @thecentriclab.com (and me personally) in the publication of this case study in the @citiesxhealth.bsky.social journal.
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Raechel Kelly @raechelkelly.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Lichen subscribe
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Dipping into this gorgeous collection of new writing by people working on the land in the UK. It’s absolutely fascinating, and important. We all eat, so we all need to understand these challenges (IMO) and can be inspired by these stories of resistance, determination and regenerative approaches.
Photo of a small publication called ‘Common Treasures’ which has a moss green cover in beautiful thick card. Photo taken at a table with a mug of coffee :)Photo of the back cover of a publication called ‘Common Treasures’ which features a description of the collection. The following is a similar description copied from Bandcamp, where it is for sale. “Common Treasures is a new series of books about the challenges faced by rural communities, written by people who are working on the ground and in the fields. Each volume gathers the very best essays about climate adaptation, food production and land use, and presents them as alternatives to the prevailing political discourse.”
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ShelterBox UK @shelterbox.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Winter is coming to Gaza. Over 1 million tarpaulins and 86,000 tents are ready, yet Israel has allowed in only 1,175. 1.4 million people urgently need shelter, but aid is blocked. AID MUST BE ALLOWED IN. This is a failure of humanity and a violation of international law.
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Dr Penny Hay @penahay.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Outgrowing Modernity Navigating Complexity, Complicity, and Collapse with Accountability and Compassion by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira 💚
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
During our years of learning together we have come to understand that collective learning, if done with care, is a regenerative and liberatory practice. It goes well beyond exchange or growth of skills and knowledge, it generates ripples for the cultural waters we swim in. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Collective learning is a liberatory practice that ripples through the cultural waters we swim in
A mini-series of lab notes from CoLab Dudley on nurturing a collective learning practice, and why we see this as integral to alternative…
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ShelterBox UK @shelterbox.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
For #WorldHumanitarianDay, we're focusing on the challenges faced when delivering aid in the world’s most volatile environments. Hear from ShelterBox's Head of Security, as he discusses the risks and realities that define #humanitarian work today ⬇️ #WHD
shelterbox.org
Beyond the frontlines: security and solidarity in humanitarian work - ShelterBox
Discover how humanitarian workers face evolving security threats in crisis zones. On World Humanitarian Day, ShelterBox’
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ShelterBox UK @shelterbox.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
This #WorldHumanitarianDay, we remember and honour the lives of Haitham, Ahmad, and Batoul - our colleagues at Palestinian Agricultural Development Association who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. bit.ly/3HuNojd
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Dr Penny Hay @penahay.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
💛
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."
theguardian.com
The problem is far bigger than Jeffrey Epstein | Rebecca Solnit
Treating the scandal as an aberration misunderstands the global epidemic of violence against women
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Open Culture @openculture.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Beautiful Digital Edition of the Poet’s Pressed Plants & Flowers Is Now Online
openculture.com
Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Beautiful Digital Edition of the Poet’s Pressed Plants & Flowers Is Now Online
So many writers have been gardeners and have written about gardens that it might be easier to make a list of those who didn’t. But even in this crowded company, Emily Dickinson stands out.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 04/08/2025
so I am one of the 12 people (including the “god-fathers of AI”) that will be at the Vatican this September for a two full-day working group on the Future of AI here is my Vatican approved short provocation on 'AI and Fraternity' for the working group
AI and Fraternity, Abeba Birhane, AI Accountability Lab  

I envision a future where human dignity, justice, peace, kindness, care, respect, accountability, and rights and freedoms serve as the north stars that guide AI development and use. Realising these ideals can’t happen without intentional tireless work, dialogues, and confrontations of ugly realities – even if they are uncomfortable to deal with. This starts with deciphering hype from reality. Pervasive narratives portray AI as a magical, fully autonomous entity approaching a God-like omnipotence and omniscience. In reality, audits of AI systems reveal a consistent failure to deliver on grandiose promises and suffer from all kinds of shortcomings, issues often swept under the rug. AI in general, and GenAI in particular, encodes and exacerbates historical stereotypes, entrenches harmful societal norms, and amplifies injustice. A robust body of  evidence demonstrates that — from hiring, welfare allocation, medical care allocation to anything in between — deployment of AI is widening inequity, disproportionately impacting people at the margins of society and concentrating power and influence in the hands of few. Major actors—including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI—have willingly aligned with authoritarian regimes and proactively abandoned their pledges to fact-check, prevent misinformation, respect diversity and equity, refrain from using AI for weapons development, while retaliating against critique. The aforementioned vision can’t and won’t happen without confrontation of these uncomfortable facts. This is precisely why we need active resistance and refusal of unreliable and harmful AI systems; clearly laid out regulation and enforcement; and shepherding of the AI industry towards transparency and accountability of responsible bodies. "Machine agency" must be in service of human agency and empowerment, a coexistence that isn't a continuation of modern tech corporations’ inequality-widening,
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Just watched this beautiful film and had a good old cry about all the “disappeared” people around the world. www.imdb.com/title/tt2667...
imdb.com
The Penguin Lessons (2024) ⭐ 7.1 | Drama
1h 51m | PG-13
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Want to dive deep into the explorations and thinking of an amazing PhD researcher and social lab team member? Start with this intro to a series of posts reflecting on practice, oriented towards co-creating conditions for regenerative cultures and life-centric futures. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Stories of Place 2024–2025 Composting #3 | Co-creators as Earthworms
What if we were more like Earthworms in how we learn and do?
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Kate Raworth @kateraworth.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
What happens when the Western neoliberal economic mindset meets indigenous cosmology - I am hugely looking forward to this conversation. Join us in person in London (seats going fast) or online everywhere (seats for all) Weds 9th July. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ancestral-...
eventbrite.co.uk
Ancestral Futures: Water, Wealth and Wisdom in a World on Fire
Join three of the most respected Indigenous leaders from Brazil and the Amazon in conversation with two of the UK’s most creative thinkers.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
It’s Stories of Place at CoLab Dudley tonight. I’m exploring Dudley High Street with a cow as my (imaginary) companion, looking for a micro-space to name 🐄😊
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Next month for me is full of adventures by train in Europe. I’m looking for book recommendations to add to my Kobo reader library. I just made a start with these. What would you recommend?
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
This question makes me feel incredibly sad. Sad that a web of life has been reduced through an anthropocentric lens to an idea of a single, detached entity; ‘a tree’. Sad that parts of the web of life which are visible at human scale are considered as value or ‘assets’ to one other species; humans.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
One of my favourite things to do on a Friday: catch up on writing by folk working the fields of network weaving, commoning, creativity etc. When a post by Curtis Ogden pops up in my Feedly I feel joy. There are some lovely thoughts in this short one: interactioninstitute.org/network-weav...
interactioninstitute.org
Network Weaving as "Light Work" - Interaction Institute for Social Change
“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Li...
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I love the conversations, provocations and different perspectives which we share as collaborators in creative work with communities of many beings. It also brings joy to discover the many and new ways that we are each documenting, holding solo and collectively gathered observations and reflections.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
It feels as though the work is moving in a healthy direction when it involves Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice collaborators gathering in an abundant permaculture garden in the heart of Dudley borough 💚 🧅🧄🥕🥬🫛
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I’ve decided that in support of becoming a Nature Connected Organisation, I might try to add nature notes to all meeting notes. Just had a finance check-in with our treasurer, this time of year I pester him for duckling news and pics, as he lives on a barge. Sad news for this little family though 🦆😢
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18/05/2025
Oooof. Those direct air capture machines built by Climeworks in Iceland, to pull carbon dioxide out of the air? Turns out ... they have generated more CO2 than they have captured.
heimildin.is
Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions
The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Setting up for a two day Team Grounding Retreat exploring our learning from the last year (and the last 10+ years) and bringing clarity to work towards our North Star.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Warm memories of ways that Nick Booth influenced and shaped how I think and work, and our CoLab Dudley work. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
In deeply loving memory of Nick Booth
Warm memories of ways in which our previous team member, Nick Booth, shaped and influenced CoLab Dudley work.
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Dan HIll @cityofsound.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Do watch the ritualistic 'banging out' video here, and read the rest to understand what's going on ... substack.com/inbox/post/1...
substack.com
Fuckity bye
RIP, the Guardian-Observer 1993-2025. It was not a natural death.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Approaching Oxford, ready to make new friends and soak up inspiration for 2 days at Marmalade Festival. www.marmalade.io
marmalade.io
Marmalade
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Emma Mitchell @silverpebble2.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
My May botanical illustration & mental health w'shop’s now live. I teach you: 🌿how to break down plants into simple shapes & add shading 🧠how creative activity alters brain biochemistry to improve mental health There’s 15% off atm with the code THANKYOU15: workshops.emmamitchell.uk/courses/bota...
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Bridget McKenzie @bridgetmck.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
If you'd like to receive news, latest articles, resources & upcoming courses, sign up to my mailing list here (trying to transition from the dodgy platforms) bridget-mckenzie.kit.com/cbde1db065
bridget-mckenzie.kit.com
Landing page
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Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Nurture the hell out of the seeds of the future you want because they too are sprouting in the chaos.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Three things from lab life last week that got me reflecting on the importance of observing and sensing (in varied ways) before you design and take action. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Lorna’s Week Notes: Look before you leap
Updates on the Bringing the Stour to Life project and Urban Rooms Dudley. Reflections on networks and this Week Notes practice.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Just signposting to some lush reading to noodle through on Medium. First up, Holly’s latest Lab Note unfolding regenerative research principles evolving through her PhD and work with folk in Dudley: medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Stories of Place 2024 Composting #2 | Principles as a compost bed
Evolution of regenerative principles that invite collective learning
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Newsletter, day 19:
meditationsinanemergency.com
THIS IS REALLY HARD (BUT WE ARE NOT QUITTING): REFLECTIONS ON KINDNESS AND RESOLUTENESS
If you're reading this, you got through the first month of the assault on everything, none of it a surprise except in how stupid and ruthless the sabotage was, but a lot of its shocking, also because ...
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
Trying to keep up with regular documenting of lab activity. It’s really lovely to lift up this unlikely creativity on Dudley High Street. And it helps with reporting to funders etc. This is an account of abundant activity in a week last month. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Lorna’s Week Notes: Noticing and creatively responding in place.
Our Urban Rooms programme of creative activities continued at pace, with a myriad of offerings bringing people together.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Part of why I launched my newsletter on Ghost (now that people are talking again about Substack's Nazi problem, to which I'd add that Substack has Marc Andreessen and Y-Combinator behind it, which is at a minimum repellant)....
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
I recently helped out a friend with Notion as she’s using it for her herbalism course. Today I was gifted a herbal tea blend called Notion Potion 💕💕💕
Photo of a small glass jar with green and red leaves and petals, and a sticker on it saying ‘Notion Potion’. The jar is on a wooden surface, with books in the background.
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Mushtaq Bilal, PhD @mushtaqbilalphd.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Meta illegaly downloaded 80+ terabytes of books from LibGen, Anna's Archive, and Z-library to train their AI models. In 2010, Aaron Swartz downloaded only 70 GBs of articles from JSTOR (0.0875% of Meta). Faced $1 million in fine and 35 years in jail. Took his own life in 2013.
“Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealedA photo of Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) when he was 19.
Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But details around the torrenting were murky until yesterday, when Meta's unredacted emails were made public for the first time. The new evidence showed that Meta torrented "at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna’s Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen," the authors' court filing said. And "Meta also previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen."
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Getting back into the Week Notes writing rhythm. Playing catch up as January has been abundant with activity, with no scope for documenting until now. This is about collaborative weaving, co-working and climate stripes on the High Street, and flexing our futures thinking. medium.com/colab-dudley...
medium.com
Lorna’s Week Notes: Falling in love with the future
Collaborative weaving, co-working and climate stripes, flexing our futures thinking, and falling in love with the future with Rob Hopkins.
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Dr Penny Hay @penahay.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
“The arts matter because they are local and relevant to the needs and wishes of local people. They help citizens to express their needs and to clothe them in memorable forms. They offer a way of expressing ideas and wishes … Anywhere that neglects the arts shortchanges its people.” John Tusa
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Josh Rhodes @joshrhodes.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
So pleased my article on geo-coding addresses of 121 million + people in British censuses 1851-1911 is now out with Historical Methods! #openaccess - map any census info (ages, occupations, birthplaces etc) by address - link census to other spatial datasets Get the code and data 👇
Map of London in 1901 showing percentage of people born overseas by street.
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Lorna Prescott @lornaprescott.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
What a great book to have started this year’s reading with. I loved the work of each of the protagonists; art that I can’t describe, tech, and community resistance. Spanning times in my memory and yet to come, this is a really fascinating story.
Photo of a copy of the book ‘Memory Piece’ by Lisa Ko
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